iStockphoto
If you play golf, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve made up an excuse to get out of work in order to hit the links. You need to take some steps to cover your tracks if you want to play hooky, and the sheriff of a county in Indiana failed to do his due diligence based on public records that seemingly exposed the playing habits that have attracted some scrutiny.
Golfers who work a “normal” job that requires them to subscribe to regular business hours during the week have limited options when it comes to getting their fix. You might be able to squeeze in nine holes after getting off work or snag a tee time at the crack of dawn, but for the most part, you’re resigned to dealing with the fellow drones who usually pack the course on the weekend.
It’s hard not to be jealous of the retirees who can play whenever they want during the week as well as other people who make their own hours and are lucky enough to do the same, and it can also be very, very hard to resist the urge to weasel out of work on days where the conditions can be best described as “golf weather.”
It is a bit easier to get away with doing that when you’re in a position of power, but a sheriff in Indiana may have gone a bit too far while committing an unforced error that has added to some scrutiny he was already facing.
The sheriff of Dubois County, Indiana is in trouble after a public records request put his golf habit under the microscope
Tom Kleinhelter has served as the sheriff of Indiana’s Dubois County since he was elected in 2018.
The man who landed a second term in 2022 found himself at the center of an investigation last year due to allegations that he misappropriated around $25,000 reserved for his jail’s commissary fund, as an audit found evidence he used it to buy gifts for deputies and purchase plane tickets for his wife to accompany him to law enforcement conferences in Arizona, Florida, and Dubai.
According to WHAS, Kleinhelter has attracted further scrutiny from local officials after a public records request revealed he booked a slew of tee times at a golf course in the town of Jasper this year that would have put him on the links during normal business hours.
The club in question, Buffalo Trace Golf Course, is owned by the town, which meant it had to comply with the request that revealed Kleinhelter booked a dozen tee times between the hours of 9 A.M. and 5 P.M. on weekdays over the course of a five-month period this year. Five others were between 8:20 and 8:50 A.M., which means he would have been on the course during the work day unless he was playing one of the most impressive rounds of speed golf you’ll ever encounter.
Kleinhelter pointed to the fact that he works “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year” in an email asking him to respond to that revelation, adding, “I cannot speak to how often I played, as my Sheriff responsibilities do come first.”
He may have much more free time to play golf in the not-so-distant future, as his Indiana Law Enforcement training certification is in jeopardy due to the ongoing investigation concerning the misappropriated funds.